“Major Cleaveland wants to see you when you come up, sir,” the sailor said, as they sped down the river. “He says you’d better bring Captain Rowan right up to his house. He will send the carriage down for you. He is obliged to leave town at four o’clock in the morning, in the Eastern stage, something about a trial of his in a court somewhere, so he can’t see you in the morning.”
“Did anybody else say anything?” the captain asked.
“Mr. Carl Yorke said that, as soon as he had gone home with the ladies, he would come back to see Captain Rowan. He got up to the bridge just as we did.”
Captain Cary bent low over his oars, and muttered a word he did not choose to speak aloud. Plain men are almost always ready to have a jealous dislike of accomplished men, and a simple nature like Captain Cary’s can never do justice to a complex one like Carl Yorke’s. At that moment the sailor was thinking that, had Carl been the one to fall overboard, he would not have cared to wet his skin for the sake of saving him. And yet Carl had treated this man with friendly courtesy, and had admired and appreciated him thoroughly.
“Well, did any one else say anything?” he asked presently.
“Miss Edith felt pretty bad, sir. She leaned over the rail, and looked back to the Point, wringing her hands all the way, as we came up. She told me to say to you that she was sorry she had left Captain Rowan. I guess, sir, she is pretty fond of him, after all,” the sailor said confidentially.
“What business have you guessing or thinking anything about it?” demanded
his superior, with a haughty sternness that would have delighted Clara Yorke. “Keep your opinion till I ask for it!”
“All right, sir!” responded the sailor, and shut his mouth. If he was angry, he did not venture to show it.
“Well?” said the captain sharply, after waiting a minute.